Memories Lost, Friends Found
by ElrueFaerie
Summary: Free of their memories the scouts continue living as normal teenagers, completely oblivious to each other's existance. Fate, on the other hand, has other plans. Please leave a Review!
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Sailor Moon, the Characters, or anything else associated to it-In any language.

**Author's Notes:**

Pre-Doom Tree series. This is my interpretation of how the scouts retrieved their memories. I make a lot of Japanese references now that I've both watched the show in it's original entirety and lived in Japan for a few years. You'll probably want to look up the meanings/translations of everyone's names before you read, but otherwise, I've put together a few notes:

-The first semester of a school year in Japan begins sometime in March/April, with the second semester in late September/October.

-Yes, they have waffles in Japan.

-Kissaten (Pronounced: Key-sah-ten) is a coffee shop

I think that's it. Feel free to email me if I've forgotten anything ^_^ Enjoy!

* * *

~ Part I ~

I groaned and stared down at the test paper in my hand. Another rotten grade, rightfully so, since I hadn't studied, but still.

I'd have a hard time getting rid of this one. My parents hadn't seen a test from me since the start of term, and I was willing to bet mom had been in my bag once or twice to search for anything I would be hiding in it.

In the last few years I had become rather crafty in destroying the evidence of these papers. Once I'd even gone so far as to tie it on one of the trees at the city shrine with the rest of the bad fortunes. It would have worked, too, if the paper had not been so large...and of course the straight-backed priestess that runs the shrine had caught me.

We were around the same age and yet she loomed over me, her long black hair falling over her face that was a shade of red almost matching her red pleated pants. I'd removed the incriminating piece of paper immediately, but she had ranted for a long while, eventually calling over the page-boy that works there to bless the tree all over again. He had long shaggy brown hair and fumbled about while she yelled at him. I actually felt sorry for the guy, even if he was volunteering. Immediately I had spun around and stared down the girl, ready to challenge her. As though she had been expecting it, she was already standing with her hands folded across her chest, glowering at me.

Then, like a string had been pulled, we both stopped. Blushing, we both bowed at each other, muttering apologies for being inappropriate. I mulled over the situation on the bus all the way back home, trying to figure out what had made me so angry. I hadn't gone back to that shrine since.

Maybe I could burn this test and my folks would never be the wiser? I glared back at it, but the page quickly disappeared from my line of sight and was replaced with my best friend, Naru, and another female classmate named Suzuki. I stood and waved my hands frantically at them. "Give that back!"

Too late, they had already seen the large red mark on the top with my score.

"Usagi, you're the lowest in the class." Suzuki whined. Or maybe that was just her stating a fact? One could never tell since she spoke through her nose, resulting in everything sounded nasally. I sometimes wondered if that was why she didn't have many friends. We were in the same classroom every year and even I still never called her by her first name. She was nice enough if you looked passed the fact that she sounded like she criticized everything. Huh, I may have answered my own question on that one.

Naru smacked a hand down on my desk. Oops. I must have zoned out again-I do that a lot. It's not necessarily my own fault; I just have a lot to think about. Most people I meet see it as a handicap, that maybe I don't have much going on 'up there'. An attribute believed to couple with having blonde hair. But let me assure you, I have plenty going on inside my head; I just don't have the ability to multi-task. I can think, or I can listen to someone talk, or I can eat a whole bowl of ramen in one gulp, but only one at a time.

I sat back down and Naru's face leveled with mine. "Hey, you alright?" I nodded and pointed to the failed exam. "Mom's gonna kill me." suzuki handed back the paper and I stuffed it in my bag, making sure it crumpled so the red wasn't visible. Naru and Suzuki began to have a conversation about my well being as though I weren't there. I grumbled and stood up again to remind them that I was, in fact, still around. "I'm not sleeping at night," I blurted out "I can't sleep until it gets late. Then I have to wake up early for school." The lies just kept on coming. It was only a little fib, really. I hated when my friends ratted on me, however playful they meant it, and they did it often.

"My older brother tells me to pretend I'm slowly walking down a long hallway." Suzuki rattled "Imagine something pretty and safe and walk down the hall." She actually sounded a little dreamy as she said it. I just nodded.

"If you can't sleep, why not study?" An unfamiliar voice rang from behind me. The girls looked up and I turned in my seat to glare at the person rude enough to eavesdrop on our conversation and interrupt. Her name was Mizuno Ami. She had a short bob of light blue hair and was rarely ever seen from the outside of a book. I had the faint memory of her in glasses, but it passed with a painful tug on my emotions. Whoa, what was that?

She must have seen me wince, because she looked in my direction. "Haruna-sensei requested I become your tutor." She explained, because we were all still staring at her wordlessly. I balked. A tutor?! Why couldn't Haruna-sensei at least allow me some upperclassman to be my Senpai? Instead she humiliates me by asking someone in my own year to help. Why me?

Oh yeah, because she hates me, that's why.

I sighed. "When would you like to meet?" I asked. It was the end of the day and I was getting anxious to leave. Maybe I'd stop by the game center and let out some steam. "Now is fine." She answered and smiled sweetly. I deflated. At least she was nice about it.

Grudgingly, I picked up my school bag and gave my friends a grim look of resignation. "I'll see you tomorrow." I waved and followed Mizuno Ami out the door.

Maybe she'd still let me call her Senpai.

*--*--*

Ami was brilliant, plain and simple.

She was also the only person who didn't berate me every time I got something wrong, which was 99 percent of the time. Especially when it came to Math. It's not that I don't try, it's that I don't understand it, and Ami was trying very hard to change that.

Somehow, I had convinced her to move our study session out of the school and into a kissaten nearby where we could enjoy coffee and cake. We had started by going over my failed test, which was barely legible thanks to my earlier disregard for its well being, and then moved on to other subjects. I could tell Ami was trying not to lose her cool at me during a particularly difficult English lesson, so I suggested we call it a day. I was relieved when she agreed and offered her a slice of cake.

The look on her face was so frightened I thought I had said something wrong. "What is it?" I looked around to see if there was something happening behind us but the restaurant was still quiet and bubbly with chatting customers. Ami frowned.

"It's not too much trouble?" She asked. I smiled again and called over the waitress, telling Ami to get whatever she liked. Ami ordered a fruit tart and I got another ice-cream float. I could tell this was something new to her. Not many people noticed her at school because she spent so much time studying, but that was just fine to Mizuno Ami. No one was ever mean to her and she was very pleasant to be around once you got her talking. She had her books and she had her goals in life. She didn't hang out with a formidable group at school and she always was running to juku right after classes. We all knew about her rigorous schedule, so no one ever bothered to invite her out. Still, I could tell she was lonely.

For a few minutes it was quiet while we waited for our orders and Ami looked so uncomfortable I thought she'd jump up and make an excuse to leave as soon as she could. I was right. I fished around for a topic she could talk about, settling on asking her what her favorite book was. She looked at me funny again and I leaned forward smiling to show that I was genuinely interested. Ami didn't read manga or sci-fi like the rest of us, she enjoyed medical journals and real-life topics. I asked her as many questions as I could think of and by the time our orders had arrived she was talking just as much as I usually did. I didn't understand much, but I nodded and interjected appropriately to keep her going. Eventually she began asking me questions, too, and by the time there was a lull in the conversation the sun had set outside.

I smiled at Ami, still talking about a movie I had seen recently, as we walked out the door and turned to walk down to the bridge by the park. When we got to our separate streets I thanked her for her time in helping me study and she thanked me for the cake. Ami had only gotten a few more feet when I called out to her again. She turned back to look at me, it was like we did this everyday.

"I'll see you tomorrow" I called. She smiled and waved happily before we separated again. I went home feeling like I had made a new friend.

*--*--*

Irony strikes us in the best way it knows how: When it's expected, but unlikely.

Just that morning I had been complaining of a (fake) case of sleep deprivation. Now here I was at midnight with my eyes as wide as saucers. Mom had thrown a fit over the test, but dad had been sympathetic that I was home late from studying with a tutor, rather than busting my wallet on video games as usual. Still, I'd been given very little for dinner and my stomach rumbled for more food.

Eventually I tried to think of something that would help me sleep. What was it Suzuki had said? See yourself standing in an empty room...no, that wasn't it. Walk through a field of flowers...hmmm, nope.

Hallways! 'See yourself walking through a hallway'. Well, that didn't seem so difficult. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath thinking of somewhere I'd been, but the only building I could think of was school. Nothing about that place was relaxing, even during the spring festival. My brow furrowed as I tried to think of something else, but my brain didn't seem to want to cooperate.

I decided to start somewhere different, somewhere outdoors that could lead in. I let my mind wander around the streets of Tokyo, through the neighborhood of Azabu Juban and down some of the alleys I played in as a kid. I crossed the street from the Kissaten where my friends and I ate Parfaits and down the set of stairs to a lower street that head in the direction of home. When I reached the bottom step, I stopped. There was a door in the stone wall to my right.

I must have fallen asleep by now, because I don't remember a door ever being there before. It was bright silver, and the sunlight seemed to disappear in an unnatural way against it. It was as though the door was absorbing the light; it didn't shine or have a single mar on it. I reached for the doorknob slowly. It was black and for a frightening moment I though it would scald me. But it turned easily and the door silently swung open.

I stepped inside.

I was standing in a hallway...No, I was running through it. The hallway stretched long and narrow in front of me, so much that I couldn't see where it lead to. My white crinoline dress fluttered behind me as I ran, my hands lifting the front so I wouldn't trip over the hem. A feeling of de-ja-vu stole over me and I smiled.

Someone was laughing. The laughter tinkled like a bell, crisp and clear, echoing as I continued to run passed the scenery in front of me. Another giggle erupted from my lips-the laughter was my own-and I practically began dancing down the hall.

To my right were tall ivory doors, ensconced with silver candle holders and matching door handles. Either side of the wide doors boasted large, round, marble columns with splashes of gray flowing like small rivers marked throughout a white field. They were the most elegant things I'd ever seen.

To my left was even more breath taking. Large bay windows stretched from the floor and rounded at the ceiling, showing a beautiful garden full of greenery and water features that poured clear water as though it fell from the sky. The sky itself was so blue it almost looked silver with a bright blue and green orb hanging in its midst. Small patches of wall blocked the outside as I raced passed the many windows and against them sat small, dark wooden tables with elaborate vases full of flowers, evenly spaced every few windows. Occasionally a large drawer set with another candle mount would sit against what would otherwise be a blank space, and then the pattern would start over again.

I felt as though the hall would never end, that I would be running through it forever. I didn't mind. I loved it here.

I woke up with a start, my heart was racing. The dream had been beautiful, almost as real as the room around me. Something about it had felt familiar and I tried to remember when I had seen something that white and clean, but nothing came to mind. The dress too had been comforting and easy to move around as I'd run. Even now I could feel the soft, smooth fabric lying against my skin. But there was something very wrong about the dream, something that scared me, shook me to the core, though I couldn't quite grasp what it had been when the dream felt so peaceful otherwise.

I sat up and flung my feet onto the floor, reaching with them to find my slippers. I drew in a long, deep breath and shut my eyes as I exhaled. In one practiced move I grabbed the empty glass on my night stand and stood up to shuffle towards the bathroom. Fumbling as my hand reached for the sink in the darkness I poured some water into the glass and drank slowly, still wondering what it was about the dream that was so frightening.

After a few minutes I had settled back into the covers of my bed and lay staring at the ceiling. I turned my face to the window and gazed at the full moon. I hadn't noticed it when I fell asleep a few hours ago, but now it glowed brightly in the night sky.

Slowly, I fell back to sleep.

*--*--*

The dreams continued like that. Sometimes I was playing in the gardens I had seen from the hall that first night, sometimes I was dancing, but the details became less identifiable and blurred as the nights went on. After a week, I didn't have them anymore and I would wake up with a sigh of relief for a dreamless sleep. No matter how happy these dreams felt when I had them, I always woke up sad or afraid of the darkness. It didn't make any sense to me how something so wonderful could make me curl up under the blankets and shake with fear when I awoke.

I plodded down the stairs to breakfast and wrapped my hands around the steaming mug of green tea my mom had already set in front of my chair. My brother, Shingo, gobbled down the steaming porridge mom had already given him. "Slow down," I complained "You'll burn yourself, you know."

He scoffed, not even bothering to look up at me. "It's always the same with you. You just like finding something to complain about."

I bristled. Sometimes I didn't feel like the older sister in this relationship and it got on my nerves. I stood up and grabbed the bowl my mother handed me. "I'll eat by the TV," and stomped out of the room.

Dad was watching the news when I sat on the floor and set my porridge down to cool off. They were covering some popular actress' newest TV program, commenting politely on how entertaining it may be. I set two rubber bands in my mouth and raised my hands to put up my hair. The horoscopes popped up and began telling everyone what kind of day they should look forward to. I didn't have to wait long for mine-it was two stars, which meant I had a relatively bad day coming-but at least it wasn't the worst of the group, and Libra had plenty of rainy day animations blowing around the screen as the announcer admonished them to stay indoors.

I looked up at the clock on the wall. I still had half an hour before meeting Naru at the clock tower in the center of town for our usual Saturday of shopping and all out laziness. My coming day couldn't be that bad, I would be on time for once! I scurried to wash my bowl in the sink then ran upstairs to grab my bag. When I landed on the bottom floor again I shouted a quick 'good-bye' to my family as I skipped out the door.

*--*--*

There are Kami up there. They are up there and they are laughing at me.

About half way to the city center I stopped and looked out at the little dam set up in our town. The water was amazingly clear and sometimes, usually in the summer when the air was hotter than the sun itself, I wondered what it would be like to jump in. I continued walking, thinking it would be a nice day to take the long way through the park, when I heard a scream. Something constricted in my chest and my senses suddenly became very alert. I pitched from side to side looking for the danger then suddenly sprinted across the street, a car narrowly missing me, and through the trees at the Park's edge. I was met with a stone wall just barely taller than myself, but I lifted an arm to grab the edge and swung myself over it like I was jumping over some old ground stones.

Whoa. When did I learn to do that?

My brain wasn't as fast as my feet, for once, because I was half way through the park when I even thought to stop and see if the wall had really been that high, or if I was making it up. I flew through more trees (not tripping even once!) and crashed through some bushes to the center of the park where the water fountain stood. I stopped.

Even now I don't like to admit that my body had run on its own accord. In the back of my mind I hid the knowledge that if I had switched off my brain and just sat back to watch, I still would have ended up in this spot. I know this, because now that I had stopped I let myself try to move my feet. They wouldn't go anywhere. My head swung left and right again as my eyes looked for the source of the scream when I saw another woman on the other side of the park. We stared at one another, sizing each other up.

When neither of us found the other to be of, or in, any danger, we walked towards one another, meeting at the fountain. I didn't say anything, my body was still acting on its own, and I was petrified to see if I could use my mouth to speak.

"Did you...hear something?" The woman asked me. She was my age, maybe a year older, but what struck me hard was the resemblance between us. We both had long blonde hair, though mine was much longer, and bright blue eyes. Her face was rounder than mine and she had a spark of maturity, but anyone looking for us in a crowd could have easily mistaken one for the other from a distance. She was very pretty, too. Much more than I ever thought myself to be.

I nodded my head but it still felt strangely involuntary. We paused and listened to the wind blowing through the trees and the laughter of small kids begging the man with balloons for a certain color; there were no more screams.

Simultaneously, our bodies relaxed and I found I could move freely again. I even stomped my foot a few times and waved my arms to be sure. The other girl looked at me like I might attack her and eventually I stopped frantically dancing about to smile, truly happy to be in control of myself again. "Maybe it was a child." I supplied, hoping she would talk to me without thinking me mad. She relaxed again and looked around "I wonder..." then readjusted the bag on her shoulder. The name painted on it was "Aino Minako" and I had the feeling she was on her way to a gym.

That's when I felt Power for the first time. Or maybe it wasn't the first time, because it had almost seemed natural. A wave of clean energy emitted from the blonde in front of me and washed passed me like a wave that had been forced to split in two by an intruding rock. I felt it stretch behind me, searching for some kind of presence or danger for a few seconds. Then it receded, pulling back towards its origin and disappeared. My mouth fell open.

Minako blew a strand of hair out of her face and shrugged, disregarding the event. I began to ask her what school she went to when the clock tower in town chimed loudly to signal the hour. Minako smiled and bowed to me uneasily before turning and running back towards the end of the park where she had appeared from. I looked down at my pink bunny watch to double check the time was correct.

Great. NOW I was late.

*--*--*

Naru was already waiting for me in front of the tower that displayed the name of our little part of Tokyo, Azabu Juban, when I reached her. I stumbled to a halt and wheezed for a few moments to catch my breath while Naru berated me for always being late. I didn't hear much of it since I was contemplating other frivolous matters. Like, it was funny how I had run and jumped through the park not moments ago without even being slightly winded. Now I was close to passing out from just a few blocks!

I felt Naru grab my arm and pull me up again, somehow not noticing that I had spaced out during her small rant. I took another few gulps of air and righted myself while we ran over ideas of places to go today. There were very few places in town we could go to enjoy ourselves without having to get on the subway. Eventually, we settled on the usual: Games and Pictures at the Crown Game Center just a few blocks away.

It had been a cool spring so far, but the weather was quickly turning warm again. My shirt was sticking to my back due to the Olympic sprint I had preformed trying to reach the center of town after I'd realized I would be late, and the promise of cool air-conditioning was becoming very appealing. Naru and I reached the double doors of the arcade, marching right through them as they opened automatically.

We both screeched as a white cat darted around our feet, out of the arcade and into the street. It did that a lot, though I could never understand what it was doing in a place full of loud teenagers and bright flashing lights attached to game sirens. Weren't cats skittish? I thought that for probably the hundredth time as Motoki looked up from his spot behind the counter and called out to me, waving with a huge grin on his face. My heart did its usual flip-flop in my chest and I smiled and waved back, forgetting about the cat. Someday I'd remember to ask him about that, really I would.

A movement from the edge of the counter caught my eye and my heart sank into my stomach, the smile falling from my face just as quickly as it had arrived. Standing to the side, waiting for Motoki to finish with some kids asking him questions, was Chiba Mamoru. I grabbed Naru's wrist.

"Let's go. We can come back later." I groaned. Naru looked at me askance. "But we just got here!" I turned back towards the counter. Motoki had gone to fix something, but Mamoru-baka was still standing there looking as grumpy as ever. I don't think I'd ever seen him smile. As if on cue, he lowered his sunglasses in a handsome gesture (What? I never said he wasn't gorgeous!) and glared at me. Hoo Boy. If it were ever said of two people disliking each other that looks could kill, it was Mamoru-heta (Meaning 'Failed protector') and Tsukino Usagi. Hmm, I thought about my name for a moment. For the first time in my life, something about it felt both odd and funny at the same time.

"USAGI!" Naru shook my arm. Oops, zoned out again. I blinked at her a few times when she moved between Mamoru-Kowaii ('Mamoru the Scary') and I, effectively breaking the spell of our secret "Oh-how-I-Loath-You" game. I quailed for an excuse to leave, "I'm hungry." I stated simply and Naru laughed. "You're ALWAYS hungry." I shrugged. So what if I just ate breakfast? I had the metabolism of an Olympic Athlete, and at that moment I wanted to be anywhere but here. Naru sighed and adjusted her bag on her shoulder; I turned on my heel and followed her back out the door.

I half expected to see the cat clamoring to get back in as we left.

* * *

**AN:** Somehow I posted the un-edited version of this the first time around. This is the final copy of Part 1, I swear! :D

Chapter 2 is a little more descriptive and violent, which is why I have this at a T level.

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! I'll love you forever :3


	2. Part II

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Sailor Moon, the Characters, or anything else associated to it-In any language.

**Author's Notes:**

-The number 4 in Japan has the same meaning as the number 13 in the states. It signifies bad luck and death.

-At a shrine, it's customary to give a donation of 5 or 10 yen (5 or ten cents) 100 yen is a dollar. 500 yen is five dollars (According to the economy last year at least.)

* * *

~Part II~

The dreams started again. They came every couple of weeks and would last for a few days before melting into flights over the ocean with talking dolphins, or waffle eating contests: You know, _normal_ dreams. Ones that you knew couldn't be real.

The dreams became more vivid, too, like I was reliving a memory that belonged to someone else. I'd even had one about Chiba Mamoru, of all people, but the events were so embarrassing I couldn't look at him for a week after that (which probably didn't change much between us, other than the fact that I blushed so red my face looked like a ripe tomato.) and not all of them were as peaceful as the first week. Some nights I woke up in a cold sweat or screaming with my hands reaching for the ceiling. I started locking my bedroom door, afraid I would be sleepwalking next and alert my family to these strange on goings.

I kept a calendar. Mom had given it to me for school, so I could write down test dates and homework assignments, but I never looked at it once I wrote those down so it had never helped much. I circled the days the dreams would start-I had them about once every 30 days. I thought back to the first night of each of those weeks, when the moon was at its fullest and my whole bedroom lit up from the silver light.

I shivered. As far as omens go, that seemed pretty creepy; and after four months of the same thing, I began to worry. Haruna-sensei yelled at me again for not paying attention and I slid the day planner back into my school bag. With the way her brain functioned, she'd probably think I was counting something else that appeared once every month. Not my choice of conversation for tomorrow's detention.

I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking of someone I could talk to and eventually I fell asleep in class. Hey, I had to make up for the restless nights somehow.

*--*--*

I stood at the bottom of the stone stairs to Hikawa Shrine. Was this really the best option I could think of? I was pretty sure after our last encounter that the priestess hated me.

I trudged up the steps to the shrine at the top, my little calendar of forgotten school chores and odd dream tracking clutched to my chest, and looked around the garden. The old man who ran the place was berating the page boy I had seen on my last visit and the girl with long raven hair was sweeping the front stoop to the house. A pair of jet black crows pecked at the ground by her feet. They looked up at me as I approached and eyed me suspiciously.

Ooookay, I'd had enough with the strange animal behavior. Birds don't size people up like that. I had half a thought to jump and shout "Boo!" at them, but I didn't think it would help the priestess to sympathize with my plight. As it was, she had stopped her chores and narrowed her own eyes at me. I gulped.

People in town talked a lot about this girl. Aside from her fiery temper, she had the eerie ability to make very accurate predictions for people. Some even believed that her predictions were really curses, but that was usually bitter reprise from those who were given bad news during their visits. I just hoped she didn't charge a lot.

I heard an exasperated sound escape her and she smacked at the ground with the broom to get my attention. I was spacing out and staring at her while I did it. Not the best way for us to reconcile our differences, I'm sure.

"I'm..." I started to introduce myself and then changed my mind. "I'm having strange dreams." I stated, stopping again. Apparently my planning in coming down here hadn't included what I wanted to say. Shouldn't fortune tellers _know_ why you're there anyway?

"Wrong." She said, looking away haughtily. I looked up at her in shock. "Huh?" was this girl a mind reader too? I began to feel that maybe this was a bad idea.

"I can't do dream interpretation; only predictions and fire readings." She sighed and looked back down at the ground, continuing with her sweeping. "Try asking one of the women sitting by the train station." She smirked, not looking at me again. She obviously thought the old women who sat at fold-up tables in front of the train station at night were phonies. Somehow, I didn't blame her.

I started waving my hands frantically in front of me to show that I hadn't meant to offend her. "No, no. I don't want a dream interpretation." She paused and looked back up at me, following the planner in my hands as I waved them back and forth while I continued. "Each one is different and not at all strange...well, when I say 'strange' I mean they don't have talking animals or start in a car and end in a boat kind of dreams...no wait, there have been talking cats..." I was babbling. Once I started, it was quite hard for me to stop. The crows began cawing at the girl's feet and I had the uneasy feeling they were laughing at me. Maybe I would re-think the 'talking animals' part of dreams being weird; I could almost see why I had them.

It was then that the priestess plucked the calendar from my hands and began sifting through it. I stopped talking. She flipped through a few pages and stopped at today's date, closing her eyes for a few moments. I stood there and watched her. A strange sort of pressure grew around her and I had another feeling similar to the time in the park a few months ago. Power.

Her eyes snapped open and I exhaled, having held my breath without realizing it. She looked at me in a strange way and then motioned for me to follow her.

We removed our shoes and stepped inside the tatami room that faced the garden. She turned to close the shoji screens while I sat down on the only cushion in the room. After it was dark, save for the light coming through the semi-opaque paper of the doors, she began bustling around the room for supplies.

"Erm, you wouldn't have some kind of student discount..." I began to ask, folding my legs under the rest of my body in the traditional (and extremely uncomfortable) style, but she didn't seem to hear me as she walked to the fire pit against one of the walls. A fire lit up in front of her she began to step backwards, seating herself on a slightly raised platform set between two dark wooden posts. Our shadows danced in the light while she stared into it, raising her hands to form complicated symbols and whispering what I could only guess were Buddhist prayers.

At the end she shouted a word that sounded similar to "Kai!" and thrust her hands forward. The fire roared to life, flames licking at the ceiling where there were already charred marks from previous readings. For a moment I thought we'd be swallowed by the fire and began glancing nervously at the door.

Then the fire died. Just like that, it went black in the room and there was nothing but smoke. The priestess opened her eyes and sucked in a few gulps of air, sweat beading on her forehead. I shivered a little and wrapped my arms around myself. For a room that had had a raging hot fire not moments ago, it was pretty cold in there.

Or maybe that was just fear (The same could be said for my legs feeling numb, though sitting on the floor with your feet under you for any length of time could do that too). "What did you see?" I finally whispered.

The girl turned to look at me, almost as though she had forgotten I was in the room.

"Nothing." She looked astonished at her own answer. "The fire told me nothing. I've never had that happen before..." Her voice trailed off and she looked at me again. For the second time that day I felt as though my soul were being scrutinized. I blinked and looked away. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out some money but the girl held up her hand. "No charge. I didn't give you an answer."

I placed the money back in my pocket, but dug through my coin purse for a 100 yen coin and followed the priestess out the door making sure she saw me drop it in as a donation. Some people would have felt cheated by the presentation, my parents would have chided me for wasting my allowance on something like that, but I had felt the power in the ritual and it had been real enough to show the girl at least some respect.

For the first time in all the years I'd been here, the girl smiled at me and bowed deeply. "Thank you."

I bowed back and straightened again. "Tsukino Usagi" I said, returning the smile.

"Hino Rei." She answered and turned to go back into the house.

Again, the irony of a name struck me. Somehow, I was betting to believe it was more than Japanese folklore this time.

*--*--*

It was a few weeks after that when the earthquake hit.

At least, we had all thought it was an earthquake to begin with. The whole house shook and I could hear the rumble outside that sounded like a train speeding through the monsoons in fall. That had really been the aftershock of the meteor.

I remember jumping up in my sleep and throwing my door open to stand in the frame. When the shaking subsided, I'd gone to my brother's room and made sure he followed me downstairs where our parents were grabbing the emergency flashlights. We stood in the genkan, our feet in our shoes just in case, for a few tense minutes. When nothing else happened Dad slipped out of his shoes and went back into the house to turn on the television, flipping to the news to see how high the quake had rated. Mom went outside to join the neighbors and see that no one else had been hurt. Shingo and I mulled around for a few moments, waiting to see if we could go back to bed, when a brilliant flash of green lit up the sky from the edge of the city. The light pierced through the windows, bathing the whole house in an eerie emerald color before subsiding slowly. For a whole minute everything I saw was highlighted in an odd jade color when I blinked, like looking at the world through a green-glass bottle, and then that faded too.

I had that strange involuntary feeling again, and before either my dad or Shingo could stop me I was out the door with my coat in my hand. I ran towards a horrible pulsing feeling of energy. This wasn't like the kind of power I had felt from the priestess, which had been calming and strong. This power made me feel nauseous and more than a little dizzy. I tried to fight my feet for authority over my movements, but they kept dragging me towards what looked like nothing more than a large hole in the ground. I stopped short of a few emergency vehicles and police officers who were pushing pedestrians away from the edge of the crater in the middle of the road. My feet stopped abruptly and I swayed, the sudden halt of movement catching me off balance, causing me to fall backwards onto my rump again. I let myself take a few seconds to catch my breath and stop shaking. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered if I was possessed, but the thought scared me too much to think about, and I pushed the idea out of my head.

Standing up I threw on the coat over I had somehow managed to grab on the way out of the house over my pajamas and looked around myself. The thing, I still couldn't fully see it from where I stood, had taken out a house. I watched as some people screamed and others just sat around completely stunned at the scene. I felt like crying. There could have been a family in there...no Usagi, don't think that. They could have been on vacation, or maybe the house was for sale and no one was living there anyway. That's right, no one had to get hurt. But I knew I was lying to myself, even though I kept repeating the words over and over again.

More people began showing up and I recognized some of them from school. I pushed forward to get a better look while some of the bystanders began gossiping about what was happening. When I finally got to the edge of some police tape that had been put up around the perimeter I saw a large porous rock of some kind sitting in the middle of the hole and on top of the house I pretending wasn't there. It was glowing in the same dim green light that had blinded the city not ten minutes ago.

I swallowed the lurch of my stomach and began backing up, glad my feet were listening to me again. I didn't want to be around that thing-whatever it was. There was something about it, something that was unnatural. TV station cameras showed up, townsfolk gossiped about some rock that had fallen out of space, how our little town would be given some recognition for a major scientific find, so on and so forth. I finally turned around and started heading home. That thing, whatever it was, was not a rock. Deep down I had the sneaking suspicion that it was-and I know this sounds crazy-but it was alive. The waves of energy that I'd felt were the same feelings I sometimes had around humans. People who I felt had extraordinary talents, or even random strangers at times, but this energy was twisted, warped. It was negative, where most other had been positive.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and walked the rest of the way home, suddenly tired. The next morning, I woke up with a cold and didn't leave the house for a week.

*--*--*

That was around the time the attacks started.

First a few people, maybe two or three, had been found unconscious. There was a news article about some mysterious flu circulating in town, which led to dehydration, and the media warned everyone to take extra precautions. The following week there were more, but those hospitalized weren't getting better; some were dying. Each of them had small scraps or burns around their throats, and it was thought they were strangled, not sick.

Mom began walking Shingo to school and Naru and I met up half way in the mornings to walk together. In the case someone tried to hurt one of us the other could run for help. It was a bad couple of weeks.

It was also then, that I met Kino Makoto.

At least that's what I think her name was. She had been a transfer student to my school almost a full year earlier, and she stuck out like a sore thumb in her old school uniform. Some people said she had burned the new ones in protest and left the ashes on the principal's door step; others said she belonged to a biker group and was really wearing her "street clothes" to mock the school system. A few even said she was poor and the school hadn't agreed to lend her a uniform (and those students came to school with bruises the next morning after spreading around _that_ little gem). One thing was for certain: she was tall, as tall as some of the teachers, and she had a tough attitude. Personally, I believed the biker rumor.

I had overslept again. Dad was at work and mom was probably on her way home from walking Shingo down the road. I charged out of the house with my school bag half opened and hoped Naru had gone on without me to class. Skidding around the corner of our neighborhood I decided to take some of the smaller alleyways to cut my commute short. Not the brightest decision among all the hype going on, I'll admit, but hindsight is always 20/20 they say.

I was only a block away from the school; I could see the building between a couple of budding trees and hear the first bell when someone stepped in front of me and I bumped into them head-on. Spring is usually the popular time of year for Yakuza-wannabes to be bumbling around in the night, but even in the fall they tend to try and show off. Most of them stick to the North side of Tokyo. The ones in Azabu Juban are the weaker kinds of Yankees, but for a 16 year old girl, they can be a little daunting.

I fell backwards and someone else caught me. For a few confused seconds my emotions battled between anger and relief. I looked up to see two very large boys, one who was now holding my arms to keep me from hitting the ground, leering at me. My senses flooded with dread.

"Where ya' goin?" The one holding me asked in an oily voice. I cringed and tried to swallow my fear.

"She bumped inta' me," The taller one, who I realized had deliberately stepped out in front of me, started to complain. "It hurt. Say you're sorry."

I blurted out about a hundred apologizes in the span of a minute and then mumbled that I was late to school while trying to walk away. Oily tightened his grip on my arms.

I panicked.

The two boys began grinning at one another and pushed me against the wall, crowding around to block my escape. I dropped my school bag and considered screaming to be my best option when a shadow dropped over the three of us, effectively blocking out what was left of the light coming in from the street by the school.

Kino Makoto stood there, her own school bag flung over her shoulder, frowning at the scene. She bent over to pick up a rock by her feet and suggested the boys let me go. They were just as surprised as I was to see her there, but once the jerks noticed the feminine look of their assailant they sprung towards her in a clumsy attack. The rock flew from Makoto's hand and hit the tall one in the head. Then I watched as her foot met squarely with Oily's sternum. Both boys fell to the ground and scrambled away quickly between Makoto and either side of the wall. Calmly, she leaned down again to pick up two more rocks and spun on her heel to release them. Both hit the running Yankees in the head and I watched as they fell to the ground again.

Makoto turned towards me, an angry scowl spread across her face, and set down her bag for the first time. Taking a deep breath she knelt on the ground and began picking up some of the things that had fallen out of my own school bag. When I could move my mouth again I'm pretty sure I mumbled another apology and she looked up at me, a smile stretched across her face as she returned my refilled bag. She looked ten times nicer than I'd ever seen her. I stood, still frozen in shock as she held the bag in front of my nose. The smile faded to something that looked sad before she stood up, still holding my bag. "You gonna run away too?" she asked, that hint of sadness apparent in her voice.

My thoughts broke again and I shook my head. "That," I pointed at the empty space where the two idiots had fallen a second time. "That was amazing!" I practically screeched. Makoto's eyes popped open in surprise and she looked down at me, her red rose earrings glinting in the sunlight as we emerged from the alley. "Could you teach me Rock thing?" I asked excitedly, throwing my hand out as though I were holding two imaginary stones.

Sometimes I have the complete opposite reaction people expect. This was no different, as I babbled on and on in front of Kino Makoto about her cool fighting skills when most people would have taken off and claimed she had intended to kill them next.

We entered the school grounds and I looked up at Makoto who was smiling at me. The late bell rang and we both cursed, breaking into a matched run. She got to the doors of the school first and held them open for me. Darting up the steps to the second floor we reached the top and turned separate ways towards our respective classrooms, but she gave me one last encouraging grin before disappearing down the hall.

Haruna-sensei already had a bucket of water waiting for me to balance by the door. The least she could have done was keep from writing my name on it.

*--*--*

After a certain number of detentions, it's only natural that my parents would be called by the school. I returned home to a horde of angry faces and was handed a pamphlet in silence. It read "Preparatory School for Girls." At first I thought it was a joke, something to scare me into submission, but as I read it a slight feeling of horror stole over me. This was a Saturday school for me to attend, and according to some stamped red letters on the back, it was a demand from my school that I attend or fail the semester. No one would believe that the events of this morning hadn't been entirely my own fault, and mom had me up bright and early the next day to go downtown with my books.

I grumbled at the unfairness of it as I entered the quiet building. The entrance hall was empty, but there were posters pointing up a set of stairs for the "Shooting Star Academy" where I was supposed to go. I followed the signs down another hall to the only solid steel door there. I opened the door and stepped into a room full of already seated girls. They each turned to look up as the door shut behind me.

I froze. Mizuno Ami, Aino Minako, Hino Rei, and Kino Makoto, all sat in front of me. I had that feeling again. One that had cropped up each time I'd spoken to a girl in one of those chairs, like seeing them made my day better. It passed, like it always did, after a few seconds, but I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was not right.

Each one of them had a similar pamphlet on the desk in front of them and I got a sinking suspicion that they were all different. Regardless, I took the last empty seat in the room.

I felt...herded.

Nervously, I stole a glance at the raven haired priestess beside me. She looked back at me and my reservations were confirmed at the uneasy look in her eyes. I opened my mouth to say something then closed it again. What would I say? Would either of these girls listen to me when all I had was a sense of uncertainty to backup my fears?

Aino Minako caught my eyes next and there was the same connection we'd had at the park. Both of us had the same doubts about the situation and, somehow, I could stretch my senses to confirm that all five of us were feeling it. I tried to speak again, but a door at the opposite side of the room from where I had entered flew open and I snapped my mouth shut. We all looked over our shoulders as the professor walked through the door and came to stand in front of us. My feeling of discomfort piqued.

The woman standing in front of us was wearing a blue skirt suit and white blouse that hung from her frame as though she had been in the clothes for days. Her hair was a mess of tangles and she smelled heavily of vinegar. Her skin looked flakey, like a dead moth's wings; if you touch them they will crumble away into dust. But her eyes are what I remember most. They were sunken in and hollow, a deep purplish light bore through the sockets instead of regular eyes and a grainy voice screeched out from her throat. All of us jumped out of our seats as she cackled, but something in the back of my head told me it was too late. We'd look at her eyes, those chasms of negative energy, and slowly we all took our seats again, mesmerized by the eroded worms living in those voided membranes.

I barely registered the sound of bones grating against one another and the tear of flesh as the monster within fought its way through skin to reveal itself. The body of the woman, whom the Youma has used as a husk, fell away to the floor and crumpled like a pile of dirty laundry. I felt the Goosebumps raise on my arms and a tickling twinge run down my spine where my brain was desperately trying to signal my body to get up and run away. My body stayed right where it was, frozen beyond shock, shaking with fear, and eventually my brain slowed into a fuzzy state of nothing. It wasn't at all peaceful, my head was throbbing and I felt my eyes closing as I gave into the feeling of being sucked dry. I just wanted to shut my eyes completely and fall asleep, anything to get the dull ache and horrible voice of laughter out...

I felt pain. So fresh and jarring that it shot down my right arm and jerked me out of the malevolent reverie.

"Ow!" I screamed, looking down at the bite mark and rubbing my arm while I searched for the cause. My eyes landed on a blue-gray cat mewling at my feet. Another cat in a room full of people! This was getting old. I stared down at the feline, completely ignoring the chaos going on around me, and it stared back. I felt my face fall and all sounds in the room muted. For what seemed like hours, the cat and I were the only two in the room, staring at one another. I noticed the crescent shaped bald spot on its forehead, making the cat seem stranger still, and slowly reached out to it with my hand. I didn't even have time to think of what I was doing as my index finger came in contact with that soft, warm spot. Gold Light burst out from the cat at contact and I went blind as it enveloped me, warm and reassuring.

And then it was over.

My entire life of a carefree teenager ended as the light died down. The past six months all clicked into place and for the first time since waking up in my bed that strange morning after our last encounter with Beryl I felt whole.

"Usagi?" Luna had climbed onto my lap and I raised a hand to pet her. She rubbed her head against my palm reassuringly. "Oh, Luna," I croaked, feeling a tear slip down my cheek. "I really did miss you." I finished smiling down at her.

"This is not the time. We need to awaken the remaining scouts and get out of here." Down to business even in a heartfelt moment; that's my Luna.

I stood and she lightly jumped from my lap.

The Youma looked at me in shock, standing on my own as I was no longer conforming to its influence, and I took the time to transform into my Sailor Senshi form. The feeling of light around me was so familiar I almost cried. Soft ribbons wrapped around my skin and in the blink of an eye I was no longer standing in the room as Tsukino Usagi, the teenage klutz, but as Sailor Moon, the fighter of Justice.

Forgetting the four other girls the Youma's eyes lost the murky purple glow that had filled my head and I saw my friends' bodies slump over in their seats from the loss of energy they had experienced. Luna waited for me to bait the monster before jumping in front of them to return their memories, but she didn't have to wait long. With its long talons stretched towards my throat the thing sprung out at me, landing on the spot where I had been standing as I lunged out of the way. Desperately I picked up my empty chair and threw it at the Youma but it bounced off the stubborn thing and crashed to the floor.

I took a second to have a good look at the monster standing in front of me and realized that it seemed mostly human, if not for the scale-plated arms with long, sharp black nails sprouting from its hands. The face was horribly disfigured into something animal and it had canine teeth that I was pretty sure could shred metal like scissors through paper. Not a comforting thought as it sprang after me again.

I screamed and flung my hands in front of my face when a jet of fire suddenly blazed overhead and flung the creature backwards. It hit the back wall with a heavy thud and then the room went all foggy. Next I felt that wave of yellow energy reaching out to find the Youma in the mist and then my hair stand on end as Lightening began to form against the ceiling and rain down where the being still hunched against the wall. It screamed and I took up my tiara in my hand.

It was all over in a few minutes. Lesser Youmas rarely pack a real fight to give us much trouble. They're kind of the calm before the storm, if you will. Mentally I began counting down for the real brains behind the operation to appear.

"I didn't know there was someone like you on this planet."

Yup, right on cue. The scouts and I looked up at a green, purple and pink blob. Slowly, my eyes focused to reveal a couple of very odd people entwined around one another. My stomach churned.

"Who are you two?" I was pretty sure they were going to tell me anyway, but I asked all the same.

"Members of the wandering nobility of the universe, Ail," The blue one said.

"I'm Ann" The pink one echoed.

"What we did today was just the beginning." They chorused and that was the last of their speech, as indicated by the shrieking laughter that followed. The portal melted away and the room returned to normal. I looked back at the four colorful girls behind me. For a moment we were oddly silent and then I started laughing.

Makoto cracked a grin, Minako giggled a little too, and Ami smiled back at me. Rei was the only one glowering at me for not being able to take anything seriously. I doubled over and clutched my sides thinking that a better reunion couldn't have been planned.

Here we go again.

-End-


End file.
